


Missing Pieces (The Stardust & Supernova Remix)

by blackkat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, vaguely a sentinel/guide au with the serial numbers filed off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 00:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16051802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Tobirama follows Hashirama to the river with a thousand points of light burning in his head.He leaves with one as all he can see, a bonfire, a conflagration.Uchiha Madara sets a match to his life with the simple fact of his existence, and in his wake Tobirama is left standing in a field of ashes.





	Missing Pieces (The Stardust & Supernova Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peppymint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppymint/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Children of War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14738936) by [peppymint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppymint/pseuds/peppymint). 



> A remix of chapter 3 of Children of War, for the MadaTobi Remix Challenge on Tumblr.

Iron on his tongue, steel in his hand, and he’s closer to dying with every moment he lives. Each step ahead is two steps back, and Tobirama looks forward, keeps moving, keeps breathing, keeps _dying_.

Madara's eyes slide past him on the battlefield, seek out Hashirama instead, and there are only ashes on Tobirama’s tongue.

This is life of a sensor, the death of a sensor, and Tobirama’s always known it as well as he knows his own name.

 

The world shows itself in ripples and washes like fire and streams like water, and it’s all Tobirama knows from the first time he opens his eyes until he’s old enough to realize that most people don’t see that way, that most battlefields don’t burn like midwinter fireworks and most people aren’t happy-sad-anxious-grieving in their chakra alone. It’s all Tobirama knows, all he sees, and he follows Hashirama to the river with a thousand points of light burning in his head.

He leaves with one as all he can see, a bonfire, a conflagration.

Uchiha Madara sets a match to his life with the simple fact of his existence, and in his wake Tobirama is left standing in a field of ashes.

 

He doesn’t tell Hashirama.

There are a thousand secrets he keeps from his older brother, things both vast and small, and a thousand and one is hardly more of a burden. Hashirama is a star, or an oak; he puts down roots, plants himself, grows towering and sturdy and strong to protect those who gather around him, but Tobirama is nothing like his brother. He’s the river, fast and furious with its seasons of floods and moments of calm, its rages and retreats. He’s a sensor and he’s dying and he’s reckless but he’s going to live forever, right up until he won't. Tobirama is a man of extremes, and if he’s a sensor, if he’s half of a whole with a piece gone missing, with a piece _stolen_ by this world they live in, he’s going to live what life he has with every inch of his soul and go to his death without regretting a moment he’s spent.

(Tobirama is everything like his brother; he _burns_ because there's a danger, because this war rages between two families, because there are two small graves with smaller bodies inside of them. He rages and he fights and the war never ends, and sometimes he looks across the battlefield at a bonfire wildfire _star_ , and he thinks _what if what if what if_ like the pounding, pulsing beat of his heart.)

(Sometimes a thousand and one secrets are just the right amount to break the world clear down the center.)

Tobirama builds jutsus out of sparks of chakra and lines of fire, crafts seals and builds blazes that always try to rival that one burning figure that’s never far from his sight. Nothing can match Madara's presence in his senses, but Tobirama _tries_ , creates and tears down and tastes iron and ashes but that fire is always, always dancing in his mind.

On the battlefield he faces Madara's little brother, a shadow of that signal fire, and Izuna looks at him with a sneer on his lips and gleeful pity in his eyes, says _sensor_ like it’s a death sentence and it _is_.

(One match for every sensor, one complement to each existence, and nothing can live as half of a whole when it _knows_ what pieces it’s missing.)

He thinks, sometimes, when the taste of ash is strongest on his tongue, of reaching out. Thinks of shoving his hands into that blaze like grabbing embers out of a fire, thinks of skin contact, of touching, of _proving_. Madara is a star rising from the earth, a dragon roaring lightning and thunder to shake the throne of heaven, and Tobirama is the rain that burns out in his light, casts himself upon the banks of Madara's attention and is overlooked, unseen, _ignored_.

If he pressed his hands to Madara's skin, if he took hold of Madara's hair and gripped it and wrapped it around his fingers, dragged his face around and _forced_ him to look, Madara would _know_.

Madara isn't a sensor, though. He might acknowledge, might see, but he won't understand. He’ll never taste ash and creeping death the way Tobirama does, with the certainty of a doomsday clock ticking towards twelve. Matches don’t die from rejection, their bodies a weapon turned against them. Only sensors.

There's never been a moment when Madara's eyes have lingered on Tobirama.

There's never been a moment when Tobirama has hoped they would.

(That’s the greatest lie he has, told to himself a thousand times. A thousand and one won't change anything.)

(Sometimes a thousand and one lies are just the right amount to break his hope clean apart.)

 

Eight and nine and ten are not a child’s years, not as a shinobi, not among the Senju. Creeping death and blood on his tongue are no excuse for not honing himself, for neglecting his duty, and Tobirama finds existence easier when he is the dutiful son to Hashirama’s wild one. Their father’s eyes skim off of him, look away, leave Tobirama alone with his jutsus and kenjutsu and sensor training. Sneaking off into the woods is honing his senses, not play, and Tobirama takes full advantage. A year since Hashirama was caught meeting Madara on the banks of the river, a year since Hashirama started looking off into the distance more with grief and contemplation in equal measure filling his face, and Tobirama finds his footing in the warm earth and _runs_ , eyes closed, mind full of fire.

There's one point that never wavers, never goes out. Tobirama always knows where Madara is, where he’s going to be. There's never been a moment he was unaware since the very first time he set eyes on him by the river.

Madara is a signal fire, a beacon. Smaller, quieter—a torch in the dark instead of a dragon-flame—is Izuna, who catches Tobirama in the curve of the cliff with his sword drawn and his Sharingan alight.

Tobirama is never unprepared for a fight, never caught entirely off guard. He isn't now, certainly, when the whole world is midwinter fireworks and Tobirama is the oracle who can read a story in the streams. Their blades crash together in a shower of sparks, viciousness instead of the grim resignation that fuels their brothers’ fights, and Izuna snarls in Tobirama’s face, a demon with crimson eyes and the blood of Senju soldiers on his hands.

(There is just as much Uchiha blood on Tobirama’s, even at ten years old. The war is for fighting, the war is for children who will always have the element of surprise, the war is for the Clan Heads’ sons to do them proud and kill the enemy and never waver, never flinch.)

“Sensor!” Izuna hisses at him, even as they break apart. “Why haven’t you just wasted away already?”

Tobirama laughs at him, bitter and angry, but his fate is written, set, and will never change. _My match is your brother_ , he almost says, but the indignity is too much. He’ll never say the words aloud.

“I’ll waste away when the time comes, and not a second before,” he retorts, and it’s spite and stubbornness and grim determination, but he’ll never stop walking forward while it burns in his chest.

Something flickers in Izuna's chakra, in his face, half a second before he lunges in, twists through Tobirama’s defense and tries to catch him in a genjutsu.

They meet again a thousand times, and he never again tells Tobirama to waste away, to die of the inevitable rejection, either spoken or unspoken.

(Sometimes a thousand and one words unsaid are just enough to leave them enemies, but…honorable ones.)

 

Twenty is old for a matchless sensor, for a half of a whole, a forgotten piece. Twenty is old for a shinobi, though less so with Hashirama and Madara as Clan Heads. Twenty feels far too young, like Tobirama hasn’t done _anything_ , like he’s constantly clawing towards the future with salvation standing to his right but no way to grasp it.

Twenty is too old, too young, but on his twentieth birthday Tobirama wakes with a mouthful of blood and a cold, vicious ache that’s settled in his bones.

He spits out blood on the floor, rolls back onto his futon and _laughs_ , draping an arm over his eyes. Grins at the ceiling with bloody teeth, or maybe snarls, and wonders what it means that his match, his ballast, his balance is the Senju's greatest enemy.

Madara won't look at him. He turned away, at the river, chose his family, and whatever flights of fancy still haunt him, whatever still ties him to Hashirama, he’s reaffirmed that decision very time they meet in battle. There is no finding peace with the Uchiha while Madara is their Clan Head, no chance to bridge the space between them.

Tobirama does not image even for a _moment_ that he could be that bridge.

 _Go die_ , he thinks, and imagines the words from Madara's lips. _Go die_ , and to a sensor it’s not an empty phrase. _I don’t want you. I would rather you died than tie myself to you. I would rather see you suffer than allow my skin to touch yours_.

A breath wheezes from his chest, tangles in his throat, and he coughs. Spits another mouthful of blood on the floor, and breathes deeply while he can. Soon enough he won't be able to.

He doesn’t tell Hashirama, but Hashirama looks at him with dark, steady eyes, with grief in his face, and Tobirama remembers two too-small graves and thinks _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_ with every beat of his heart, though the words never cross his lips.

 

“I can end this,” Izuna tells him, when the pain is at its worst, when the fire burns supernova-bright through each of his veins and Tobirama, always a creature of cool water, has become a thing of molten light. He coughs, and his mouth is iron-copper-rust, heavy as star-metal on his tongue, weighing him down until he can't even stand under the burden of it.

“Don’t,” he says, and means _I'm dying but it’s not worth worsening the war._

Means _Hashirama might forgive you but the memory would always linger_.

Means _I don’t want Madara to hear of my death like this_.

(If he has to die like this, blood on his tongue and in his lungs and drowning him with every breath, he doesn’t want Madara to know. Let Madara think he died in battle. Let him never connect the pieces. Let him think of Tobirama what he always has, if he does at all.)

There's a part of him, though, that’s still too young, too weak. It hurts to breathe, and a small part of him wants to reach for his brother, wants to call for Hashirama and his healing and the way he always makes the pain go away, with chakra or with a smile. This time, though, Hashirama can't be his balm.

This time, the balm is laced with poison, and there's no panacea to be found.

He closes his eyes, slumped over the roots of a tree, and digs his fingers into the earth a little deeper. Reaches down for its bones, out for the star-fire-brilliance of that familiar chakra, and—

The ache is worse, a thousand times so, but it’s like thrusting his hands into the heart of a bonfire and Tobirama has never, _never_ been able to resist that blaze.

“Izuna,” he rasps, and even over the blade of that drawn sword, poised to offer mercy, Izuna's eyes are dark and grim and almost, _almost_ kind.

He can barely hear the answer, but those eyes don’t waver. Can't get out the question, but—

“When it’s over,” Izuna tells him, “I’ll take you home.”

There's stardust on Tobirama’s tongue, star-blood, starlight, star-fire burning closer and closer with every breath. He lets himself slip, lets that light rise up to drown him, and it’s cold cold cold as ice, so cold it comes right back around to fire once more.

There's a star before him, around him, ten points of bright relief on his skin as he’s pulled up, and then soft heat soothes the pain, falling over him like a veil, or maybe sunlight.

“Let’s go home,” a gruff voice says, but Tobirama can hear the beat beat _beat_ of a heart beneath his ear, the pulse of a star that’s just close enough to touch.

 

 

Iron on his tongue and the world shows itself in ripples and washes like fire, cut through with the cold clarity of a river’s flow. Tobirama opens his eyes, and for the first time in twenty years he isn't falling towards death with each breath he takes. His lungs are clear, and the taste of star-metal is still in his mouth but it’s gone dying-dark and faded.

There's a figure at his side, one he hasn’t been able to look away from since he was a child, and he doesn’t have to turn his head to know that bonfire-chakra, curled quiescent around the pool of his own strength as it gradually trickles back.

“Madara,” he rasps.

There's a low sound, dark hair filling his vision. Madara leans over him, red-and-black eyes like a galaxy-fall of light and chakra, and the set of his mouth is carefully neutral in a way Tobirama has never seen before.

“Tobirama,” he returns, and there’s a flicker across his face that wants to be regret, wants to be calculation, but can't manage either.

Tobirama closes his eyes again, though it does nothing to hide the light and heat and _presence_ of Madara so close. “I'm going,” he says, rough, words caught around the edges of remembered starlight, “to punch Izuna.”

Madara's mouth curls, the wash of his chakra warming with reluctant amusement that curls beneath Tobirama’s skin. “Would it shock you to know,” he says, “that this isn't the first time I've heard that?”

A breath escapes Tobirama like a ghost of a laugh, and he tips his head back, breathes in again just because he can. There's a hand on his arm, the source of the heat suffusing every inch of him, and he finds himself bracing for the moment it will be taken away, for the return of the pain and the cold and creeping, seeping death slipping into every cell.

But Madara isn't moving. If anything, his grip on Tobirama’s forearm tightens, and he looks away.

“It seems,” he says, and it would be flat if Tobirama couldn’t feel the lash and curl of his emotions like ripples through his chakra, “that the Uchiha finally have collateral to bargain for a ceasefire.”

Tobirama wants to bristle, wants to throw himself to his feet and insist that Hashirama has _always_ been ready to reach for a ceasefire at the very least, but when he goes to rise a cough tears its way from his throat, the ash of stardust on his tongue. He falls back, and Madara's hand presses against his chest, fingers splayed wide. His expression is the same one he wears on the battlefield, intent and narrow and focused, and Tobirama can't quite breathe under the force of it. Too like his fever-dreams, too like a heal-all dropped so carelessly in his lap, and it’s not _acceptance_ , isn't a Match, but—

There's fire under Tobirama’s skin, a single point of light, and he reaches out, curls his fingers in Madara's hair and thinks he can feel the lick of flames against his skin, hungry but not devouring.

His hands are in the heart of a bonfire, and Tobirama is a sensor and he’s alive and he’s reckless but he’s going to live forever, right up until he won't. Tobirama is a man of extremes, and if he’s a sensor, if he’s half of a whole with a piece he’s finally found, he’s going to live in this moment of respite for as long as it remains.

He closes his fingers around the embers and hangs on tight.


End file.
